About Grace

I’ve been putting off writing about Grace for over a week. Grace is our older dog. Was,that is. She’d been slowly going downhill for a few years, but when she stopped eating and drinking and could barely stand up, we brought the vet in and had to decide what to do.

Since we were unable to understand what Grace wanted, we had to make a decision as best we could. Her quality of life sucked, and the vet said she was definitely suffering.

So instead of putting her through fluid injections and tests and X-rays and God knows what treatment for what the vet said would be either organ failure or cancer, we euthanized her.

I hate that word. Let’s say it like it is: we killed our own dog. A mercy killing. I know many of you have been through this. I have before, but it’s so hard every time.

We took her ashes to her favorite river and let her go. As is often the case with people in our lives (generally speaking), Grace was a mix of sweetness and -well – the opposite.

She barked a ton. She was a cattle dog and was very territorial. She chased our other dog upstairs, because she was intruding on Grace’s territory. She nipped at us. She rubbed her butt on the carpet.

And we loved her.

As quoted in the bestbook on leadership I know, The Leadership Challenge, Former US Army Major General John H. Stanford said “The secret to success is to stay in love.” We’ll always love Grace. Go spread some of your love today.